


weekends

by birlcholtz (justwhatialwayswanted)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Anxiety, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, acts of service, baking as the 6th love language, other characters like... pop in VERY occasionally, vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaague hints at depression but honestly if i didn't mention them u wouldn't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23918536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwhatialwayswanted/pseuds/birlcholtz
Summary: 5 times when Nursey and Dex went to each other's rooms, and 1 time when they didn't.The Frogs' senior year. Dex is captain, Nursey is trying to chill, and there is frankly excessive baking.
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 122
Kudos: 347





	1. Chapter 1

When Dex had slipped out from the end-of-finals kegster, left his drink in the kitchen and ducked his head as he wove through the crowd, hurried down the stairs in the dark, gotten to his room with a feeling of relief and closed the door behind him and curled up in his armchair, he hadn't thought anyone had noticed. But the gentle knocking on his door says he was wrong.

"It's me," Nursey's voice says. 

"It's unlocked," Dex replies, and Nursey knows him well enough now— they know each other well enough now— to know that means  _ come in. _ Because for Dex, lowering his barriers is basically an invitation. He chooses when to let people in. Literally and metaphorically.

The knob turns, the door opens, and then Nursey is there. He closes the door behind him, just as gently as he'd knocked on it.

"You doing okay?" he says, and he stands by the door like he's worried if he gets too close, Dex will break. Something to be carefully observed from a distance, something fragile. Which is ridiculous. Nursey's seen him get into fights. Nursey's seen him check people into the boards. Nursey's seen him move fridges and ovens and bookshelves. Dex does not move through the world like someone who is fragile.

But on the other hand, doesn't he?

Nursey was the first person on the team who ever saw Dex cry, after a hard loss their frog year. They hadn't been friends yet. They hadn't been anywhere  _ near _ friends yet. But walking into the hotel that night, Dex had trailed behind the others, just so he could breathe and surreptitiously wipe the wetness under his eyes away before they got to the lights of the lobby. Chowder, up ahead, had said something, and Nursey had said something else, and maybe it was supposed to be a chirp aimed at Dex because he'd looked around, and looked behind him, and seen Dex a few feet back just an instant before Dex could put his head down. Dex knows Nursey saw him, because they made eye contact for the briefest of moments before Nursey turned back around— Dex, like a deer caught in headlights, looking straight ahead and shuffling along because he couldn't think of anything else to do.

Nothing had changed after that, but it still happened.

Dex has cried since then, of course. He cries when he gets frustrated. He gets frustrated a lot. That's just the way his life goes. But Nursey has a gift for finding Dex in his low moments. The rest of the team knows that Dex gets emotional over things. It's kind of hard to miss. But Nursey knows how much he cries over them. And Dex kind of hates it, because he doesn't want to be  _ that person. _ And he doesn't want Nursey treating him like something breakable.

But he feels startlingly, unsettlingly breakable right now.

"You voted for me," Dex says. He's said it before, said it right when he first found out. But he...

Nursey voted for him. For Dex, who snaps at people and is picky and argumentative and sometimes thinks he understands code better than he understands people. Sometimes, because then he'll find himself choked up at his program because tears are the only route his frustration can take, because he can't hit a computer but he doesn't know what else he can try. And there are rules about when he can and can't hit people. But they confuse him just the same. And Dex is confused right now.

"Yeah," Nursey says. "Don't tell me you're having a nervous breakdown because I voted for you for captain. Or do, because now I'm curious."

He's still standing by the door, and that suddenly strikes Dex as unacceptable. He might feel breakable, but he can't have Nursey treating him like that, because— he just can't. He needs to feel normal right now, so he nods at his desk chair. "You can sit, you know."

And Nursey does.

And then he says, "Holy shit, this chair is ergonomic as  _ fuck." _

"It was Holster's. He left it here for some reason? But Ollie and Wicks didn't want it, and Holster didn't want it back, so it was just, you know, sitting in the basement."

"And it's still sitting in the basement, just with ambience this time," Nursey says. "Just like you."

"Huh?"

"You are sitting in the basement with ambience."

Dex looks at him weirdly and Nursey laughs. "I mean, compared to when the only things down here were the washing machine and a bunch of scrap and duct tape that called itself a dryer? This is ambience."

"Uh, glad you think so," Dex says, a little awkwardly, because he doesn't know what to say to that.

"Yeah, I mean, it still doesn't explain  _ why _ you're down here, but, eh." He shrugs. "It's loud up there and Bitty keeps trying to change the music to Halo for some reason and I put Tango in charge of not letting Drunk Bitty change the music, so there's a lot going on."

"Who's winning?"

"Uh... well, I haven't  _ actually _ heard Halo start playing, so Tango, probably, but who even knows. He's determined, though. I asked him to not let Bitty mess with the music and he had his game face on."

"I feel like I should be a little surprised, but I don't think anything Tango does can surprise me anymore."

"We  _ have _ had two years to get used to him."

"Yeah," Dex says. They've had a lot of time to get used to this team. And the people on it. Tango has been at Samwell for almost as long as Nursey and Dex. Bitty's been here for even longer and... that means that he's leaving sooner, too. 

Instead of saying that, he says, "And he's had two years to get used to us. And Bitty. He knew keeping Bitty from changing the music to Beyoncé is the kind of thing that needs a game face."

Nursey looks at the bookshelves for a second, and then says, deceptively casually, "So."

"So," Dex replies.

"Bitty. How are you feeling about that?"

Goddamnit, Derek Nurse has done it again. He has zeroed in  _ precisely _ on what's bothering Dex. At least this time Dex is pretty sure he's doing it because he wants to help, but honestly, sometimes how well Nursey knows him grates on him, because Dex feels like he doesn't know Nursey. Or, no— he  _ thinks _ he knows Nursey, and has an idea of What Nursey Is Like in his head, but then Nursey will do some little thing that completely messes with Dex's data. Like leave a kegster to willingly enter Dex's 'basement of solitude', as he calls it, just because he... what? Saw Dex walk out of the kegster, and, for  _ some _ reason, decided to follow him? Because he somehow knew that something was up?

Sometimes Dex thinks he will never understand Nursey. And now is one of those times.

"Not great," he admits anyway. "Bitty's been such a great captain. And he's been, like, pulling everyone together since day one with his pies. He's always been at the heart of the team."

"Chowder told me that our first year, he asked Bitty to try and get us to stop fighting since he didn't want to talk to Jack about it," Nursey offers. "Because he thought telling Jack would get us in trouble."

Dex remembers that. Bitty, like a fish out of water in the computer lab, trying to get to the bottom of why Dex disliked Nursey so much. "Huh. But you see what I mean. Nobody in their right mind would ask  _ me _ to try and get two people to stop fighting. Fighting is kind of my specialty."

"You'll fight for us," Nursey says easily, like it's that simple. "That's why  _ I _ voted for you, anyway. Jack was obsessed with getting the team to play as well as possible, Ransom and Holster... well, they were mostly preoccupied trying to live up to Jack's legacy, but they wanted everyone to enjoy being on the team. And Bitty got everyone to work together. You don't have to be any of them. We didn't vote for you because we thought you would be the most like Bitty."

"Nobody is like Bitty," Dex says.

Nursey shrugs. "I mean, Hops idolizes him, so he might give it a try— I mean, other than how shit Bitty is at video games and understanding anime. But I don't want you to be some kind of Bitty Lite." He smiles, slow and soft, and says, "Just be Dex. That's who I voted for."

Dex can't help but smile back, just a little. "I'll try."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i said i would update every couple of days but i'm almost done w part 5 and lack impulse control and crave validation so HERE U GO

Dex is baking.

It's not an unusual thing for him to be doing on a Friday— although it's not like he's baking as much as Bitty did his senior year, Dex is  _ proud _ of his time management skills, thank you very much— but... the scale of what he's baking might be a little much, in hindsight.

Hops had peered, wide-eyed, into the kitchen and murmured "Wow" before vanishing into the living room. Whiskey had taken one step into the kitchen, observed the chaos, and asked Dex what his senior thesis was on. Ford had just giggled when she'd seen how every available surface was covered in...  _ stuff. _

So, yeah. It's excessive. But Dex started out with a peach pie, and then he'd worried that maybe Nursey wouldn't be in the mood for pie, even though peach is his favorite, so he'd whipped up a batch of sugar cookies, but then the sugar cookies had seemed too  _ plain _ so then he'd made chocolate chip muffins with a heavy dose of cinnamon and nutmeg. Just the way Nursey likes them. And then, well, he was waiting for the muffins to bake, and he was going to pick the nicest looking stuff and bring it up to Nursey's room and then leave the imperfect ones for the rest of the team, and he decided the sugar cookies would look less plain if he decorated them, so now he's got six colors of frosting on the counter in front of him, there's a pie and twenty-four chocolate chip muffins cooling on the table, and Dex is trying to freehand ice skates.

Which was a dumb idea because he doesn't even have black food coloring or anything, so they're going to be kind of... psychedelic.

Maybe he should give this one to Hops.

The blade on the ice skate looks kind of like someone wearing yellow shoes just stepped in a green puddle of icing, so, yeah.

Dex nods to himself decisively. It's settled. This one is for Hops, because he's in the living room and therefore fair game.

He adds some more green and decides to call it abstract. Lardo would be either proud or appalled.

But most of the cookies turned out okay, honestly. He did some red hockey sticks, a couple jerseys, and he tried to draw a book but it went badly so that one's just blue. Dex is learning pretty fast that he should stick to objects that have a recognizable two-dimensional shape. He's got a couple that are a little prettier— blue skies, one with fluffy white clouds and another one with a sun in the middle. Nursey might laugh at Dex for spending so long decorating cookies that he baked on impulse after baking an impulse pie and before baking impulse muffins, but if he's laughing, then that's better than how he looked when Dex saw him coming back into the Haus a couple hours ago. He'd only caught a glimpse of Nursey's face, set in stone, brow furrowed, before Nursey had gone up the stairs and closed the door to his room a little louder than usual.

He doesn't know what happened. Last he heard, Nursey was going to talk to his advisor, but Engels has been his advisor since his sophomore year and he's adored her the whole time. So Dex is going to try and make it better the only way he knows how. He's seen Bitty do this dozens of times. He can do it too.

Dex grabs a plate and arranges the nicest-looking cookies and muffins on it, half and half, and grabs a second plate and a pie server and a fork, and then he has to juggle a bit but he gets the pie securely into his other hand, and he makes it up the stairs without dropping anything.

The door to Nursey's room is closed, which is an obstacle Dex hadn't anticipated. He doesn't have a hand free, so he kicks at it as gently as he can, then says "It's Dex" when that doesn't get a response.

"Come in," Nursey's voice replies.

Well. "My hands are full, can you open the door?"

There's a brief pause, and then Nursey swings open the door and says, "Hey, Dexy," and then he sees what Dex is holding.

"You seemed like you were not having a great day earlier," Dex explains, and begins to feel grateful that Nursey can't see all the other stuff in the kitchen that he also made. This is a slightly ridiculous amount of food for one person, even a six-foot-one college hockey player. "So I made you a... care package, I guess? It's just food."

Nursey doesn't say anything for so long that Dex seriously starts to worry he's done something wrong, and he's about to say something awkward and leave when he notices the way Nursey is blinking fast and his eyes look watery, and oh, shit, is Nursey  _ crying? _

"Can I come in?" Dex asks, because this is either a Captain Dex time or a Friend Dex time and both scenarios involve him talking to Nursey. And putting down all of this because it'll get heavy eventually.

Nursey nods and steps back to let him in, then closes the door behind him. Dex busies himself setting all the food down very carefully and very,  _ very _ slowly on Nursey's desk, with his back turned, to give Nursey a bit of time to compose himself.

"Thanks," Nursey says eventually, and his voice cracks, and Dex would chirp him about it but he'll save that for when Nursey isn't on the verge of tears. "Yeah. Uh. I was just talking to my advisor."

"How did it go?" Dex asks, and when he turns around he sees Nursey standing there, looking so lost in the middle of his own room that Dex feels a strong and immediate urge to pull him into a hug. Which he doesn't do, because he knows that when Nursey is upset, he likes to talk through it. He's a huggy person, but he's also someone who thinks best when he's bouncing ideas off of other people.

So Dex will be a sounding board. And if Nursey wants a hug, he will give him one.

Nursey sighs. "I mean, it was  _ fine. _ It's just, like... I love her, and I love that she's always pushing me, but I feel like she never thinks about how much work I've already done, and how hard I've already pushed myself, just how hard I  _ could _ be pushing myself. Like last semester was awful for me and I don't think she gets that. She thinks that because I got As in everything I can do it again, and I  _ can't. _ "

"That sucks," Dex says, and it's true. His own advisor is pretty hands-off, which is the way Dex prefers it. He's neurotic enough without a professor reminding him about things he needs to do. Nursey is tight with his advisor, which Dex has never understood. Apparently, it has its downsides.

And last semester had been bad for Nursey. Everyone could tell, or at least Dex could, but it was obvious to him. They'd done a frogs study session pretty much every day from reading days through the end of finals, and watching Nursey turn in final project after final essay after final take-home exam had been like watching him shed twenty-pound weights, one at a time.

"I think I just need to put my foot down?" Nursey says. "Like, I'll tell her I need to ease off this semester so I can... start thinking about what I want to do after I graduate, or something." He frowns. "I should think about that, actually."

"That makes sense." Dex carefully does not offer advice, because offering Nursey advice when he hasn't asked for it is a fast way to piss him off. This is also something he has learned over the years.

"Yeah, I'll figure it out, I guess. I just got really frustrated when I was talking to her about it because it was like she didn't get it at  _ all." _ He shrugs, and there's plenty of fake casualness injected into it, but Dex notes how his shoulders still relax a little more and he isn't trying to blink away tears anymore. "Anyway. Thanks for, like, noticing something was up. What did you make? Because it genuinely smells like ambrosia."

"Oh. Uh, there's a peach pie, sugar cookies— there are way more but most of them turned out ugly so I left them downstairs— and chocolate chip muffins which are probably still warm. And there are more of those downstairs too, I just couldn't fit them all on one plate." Saying it out loud makes Dex acutely, painfully aware of how  _ much _ it is, and he wants to hide somewhere. No wonder Ford had laughed at him. No wonder Whiskey had asked him about his thesis. He's becoming Bitty. 

And then Nursey really  _ does _ start crying, but before Dex has time to freak out he says, "Nothing's wrong, it's just—" He waves his hand around a little like that'll encapsulate what he's trying to say. "This fucking... means a lot. You baked all my favorite stuff because you thought I looked a little upset when I walked past you earlier and, like, I'm not trying to make this weird— it's already weird but I'm trying to not make it weirder— but... Thanks for caring."

"Of course I care about you," Dex says.

Nursey smiles, a little watery, and says, "Chyeah. It's just a nice change after trying and failing to communicate to Engels that I almost lost my mind last semester. Let's eat some  _ pie." _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!!! <3
> 
> -love, birl


	3. Chapter 3

Having the washing machine and the dryer right next to his room means that Dex usually has a lot of people coming in and out of the basement. He's pretty much adjusted to it— there's a wall, anyway, so it's not like anyone who wants to do laundry is  _ in _ his room.

Nursey usually is, though. The first couple of times Dex had heard someone start the washing machine, immediately followed by Nursey knocking on his door and asking if he was around, he hadn't thought anything of it, but a couple of weeks later he put together the pattern and realized that Nursey, for all his free spirited 'electronic calendars are for insecure people' shit (which Dex knew was bullshit before he knew Nursey keeps a meticulous day planner), has scheduled out time every week to hang out with Dex.

It just so happens to correspond with when he's doing his laundry, but Dex has never been one to judge someone for multitasking.

Nursey usually does laundry Friday afternoons, and this is something Dex takes note of as well. Last semester, he hadn't had any Friday classes, so he was in his room all the time. But this semester, he has one right after lunch, and sometimes he gets back from his only Friday class and Nursey is already walking down to the basement, and sometimes he gets back from his last class and Nursey doesn't start his laundry for another hour, but he never comes back to the Haus to find that Nursey has already started his laundry.

It has to be intentional at this point. Right? Nursey's not as much of a planner as Dex is. (Partially because Dex simply cannot cope with not having alarms for everything ten or fifteen minutes before they happen, but Dex's overzealousness just proves the point.) Nursey hates feeling like he's scheduled out all his free time. He wouldn't have just decided to do his laundry between two forty-five and three forty-five every Friday, coincidentally right after Dex gets back from class.

Part of Dex wonders if he's being self-important, but part of him wonders if maybe Nursey chose to do his laundry then this semester because he knows it's right after Dex finishes with classes for the week.

He's gotten used to the pattern, anyway, so when he hears footsteps coming down the basement stairs— something about their cadence feels inherently  _ Nurseyish, _ although that might just be because Dex is expecting him— he's not surprised. And then Nursey yells " _ Dexy" _ through the door, which isn't a surprise either.

"It's open," Dex says, and he tries to ignore how somehow just hanging out with Nursey for an hour or so while Nursey does his laundry has become a part of his day that he expects. That he... kind of looks forward to, weirdly.

Nursey opens the door and says, "You will not  _ believe _ how many papers I have to write this weekend," and Dex thinks, no. It's not weird.

Because Nursey has become one of his closest friends— maybe even his closest friend. He is Dex's automatic confidante, and Dex knows that he's the first person Nursey tells about a lot of shit. Like, apparently, how many papers he has to write this weekend.

"Seven," Dex says.

Nursey groans and flops down face-first on Dex's bed (Dex had said something about him having blanket permission to do that once, and Nursey had snickered over the unintentional pun for at least twenty minutes) and says, "I wish. Then I wouldn't feel as bad. I've got three."

"Run that by me again, how would seven papers be better than three?"

"Because then when I didn't get them all done I wouldn't feel bad," Nursey says into Dex's pillow. "Because seven is absolutely fucking ridiculous and nobody should be expected to write that many papers in one weekend."

"Three is pretty fucking ridiculous too," Dex points out.

Nursey makes some sort of frustrated sound. "Yeah, but, like, it's  _ doable." _

"Maybe if you didn't need to sleep."

"I do need to sleep."

"Are you going to try to do it, or are you going to ask for some extensions?" Dex asks, because if Nursey is going to spend the weekend shut in his room typing away, Dex is going to have to make sure he eats something, and it's better to start planning now.

"I don't know. Like, it's pretty early in the semester. What if I need more extensions later? I don't want to, like, be that person who can never turn anything in on time." He sighs, deep enough that Dex can see his back move. (Privately, Dex is wondering how Nursey is breathing like that.) "But if I'm going to get any I should ask for them, like, now."

"You can always ask for an extension and then turn it in early."

"That's true." Nursey sighs one more time, then pushes himself up to leaning on his elbows so he can actually see Dex and not just Dex's pillow. "Yeah, I'll probably do that. How's user interface design treating you?"

Dex had honestly been convinced he wouldn't like UI/UX stuff at all, but it's been growing on him these past couple of weeks. "Better than data structures. Which isn't saying much, but I like it."

Nursey flops down again, this time dramatically on his side so his face isn't blocked by the pillow. "Oh, God, that class was a nightmare, and I wasn't even in it. Like, deadass, I had nightmares about that class. And the whole time they were happening, I was like what am I doing here, I  _ know _ I'm not in this class, and the professor was basically just saying sentences I've heard you say about your assignments." Nursey grins at him as he adds, "It was a  _ trip." _ One side of his mouth quirks up just a bit more than the other side when he does that.

"Oh, so the professor was saying 'I fucking hate data structures, what do I need to do to get my degree and also avoid them for the rest of my life'? Because that is something I remember saying verbatim."

Nursey pretends to think about it. "Hmm, now that you mention it, he did look kind of like you. But balding. Hope you don't have that in your near future, because it was  _ not _ a look."

"Here's hoping, then. My dad has all his hair, so I'm probably safe." 

"You never know. Start taking biotin supplements before it's too late."

Ah, yes. This is a topic Dex is familiar with. "I'm not going to take biotin supplements no matter how many times you tell me to."

"They make your nails stronger!"

"Why would I need that?"

Nursey half-pouts at him. "To scratch your enemies."

"Usually I punch them. With hockey gloves on. So my nails are irrelevant."

"You're no fun."

"I'm very fun."

"No, you're not."

"Name one thing I've done that wasn't fun that isn't refusing to take biotin supplements with you, because that's not fun."

"Bros who take vitamins together stay together. Ransom swears by it."

Dex finds himself smiling, and he finds himself not fighting it. "Oh, yeah? And what over the counter vitamin supplement do Ransom and Holster take together?"

"Calcium," Nursey replies instantly. "For their bones. Every morning they take the supplements and then chug orange juice in unison. I thought everyone knew  _ that. _ "

"Of course. Silly me."

"Silly you."

"But if they're both taking the calcium supplements then why are Holster's teeth so much bigger than Ransom's?"

Nursey snorts before saying, "I don't think calcium makes your bones  _ bigger. _ Just stronger. Like biotin for your hair. And your nails."

"Oh my fucking god." Dex has no idea why Nursey cares about the biotin so much, but he's beginning to think that the reason he keeps harping on it is precisely because Dex is so determined to shut him down over it. If that's true, so be it. Dex can keep going like this forever.

Nursey opens his mouth to respond, but he's interrupted by someone knocking on the door to Dex's room.

"It's open," Dex says, and Hops pokes his head in.

"Dex, Tango set up a Slip 'n Slide out in the Reading Room and he's trying to actually test it and we need you to explain to him that it's a terrible fucking idea. 'Sup, Nursey."

"He..." Dex starts, and then realizes he doesn't know how to finish that sentence. "Wow."

"None of us know anything about physics or math or anything and we don't know if what he's saying about the probability he'll fall off of the roof is actually true or not." Hops shrugs. "Bully's pretty successfully holding him back right now, but I don't know how long he can hold on."

Dex sighs and stands up. "I'll just tell him we can't have anything that risky in a house that Nursey also lives in."

"I'm okay with being slandered if it means that Tango won't crack his skull open on the porch," Nursey says from Dex's bed, looking like he's debating whether it's worth getting up to come along or not.

"Good to know," Dex replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nearly done w chapter 6 so hopefully i can update daily!! fingers crossed
> 
> -love, birl


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which i project my own frustrations with college onto both nursey and dex because why stop at one of them

It's a good thing there's no practice today.

Days when they have practice are days when Dex absolutely needs to be Captain Dex. For at least a few hours at a stretch. And he's pretty okay at it. Okay enough, when he feels normal.

Today's not really a normal day, though. Today, apparently, is going to be one of those days when Dex's brain decides it absolutely cannot go a single moment longer without a break.

It's been a while since Dex's brain decided to forcibly prevent him from doing literally any work all day, and he'd thought he had been managing his workload well enough to prevent it from happening, but he'd woken up today, thought about getting breakfast, and then realized that to get breakfast he would have to get out of bed, get dressed, put shoes on, leave the basement, decide what he wanted for breakfast, and on and on and on until it hadn't really felt worth it anymore.

And, like, yeah, he's hungry, but he's not sure he can face anything more labor-intensive than going upstairs in his pajamas and taking a granola bar from the team stash. (He really needs to get a supply of those for himself at some point so he'll have some in the basement that don't require ascending a staircase to reach.)

But it's better than nothing, and that's what has Dex finally, slowly pushing his blanket aside, sitting up, considering whether it's worth it to put on the sweatshirt he left on his desk chair last night, when someone knocks on the door.

"It's me," Nursey's voice says.

"Come in," Dex says, and hopes there aren't any team things he needs to do and forgot about. And also hopes that Tango hasn't found the Slip 'n Slide again— Dex stashed it away pretty well, but inquisitive minds, and all that.

Nursey opens the door fully dressed, the shoulders of his jacket damp— is it raining today? And he's holding a bag. The look on his face is carefully neutral— he doesn't seem surprised at all to see that Dex still hasn't gotten out of bed. Kind of like he had expected it, actually. "You feeling okay?"

"My slow descent into my brain becoming a sponge got a little faster today," Dex replies. "But other than that, pretty normal."

Nursey considers that for a second, then says, "Okay, then you're coming upstairs."

"....Why?"

"Because otherwise you'll stay here all day thinking about how you haven't gotten anything done and feeling guilty. At least my room has a window, you can get some natural light. Also, I'm not giving you this cinnamon roll I got for you unless you get out of bed."

Dex blinks. "You got me a cinnamon roll?"

"Chyeah. It's almost eleven. When you didn't turn up for team breakfast I figured something was up so I swung by Annie's on the way back. I'm serious about not giving it to you unless you get up and leave the basement though."

Somehow, Nursey threatening to not give Dex a cinnamon roll is the spark of motivation he needs to actually get out of bed and pull on his sweatshirt. It's not that cold, but he doesn't particularly feel like wandering around the Haus shirtless. He's not Shitty. And besides, there's some sort of material comfort in wearing a sweatshirt. It's inherently cozy. Dex could use some cozy right now.

Once Dex has his sweatshirt on (it's a Samwell sweatshirt, and he only realizes after he puts it on that he is also wearing Samwell sweatpants and probably looks like the world's lamest walking advertisement), Nursey beams and says, "Great, now up the stairs," and Dex feels a little bit like he's being babied but he doesn't really have the mental resources to care at the moment. Besides, he's still being bribed with a cinnamon roll and Dex is weak for pastries containing cinnamon. Which Nursey absolutely knows, after over three years. And is one hundred percent leveraging against him. But Dex doesn't mind, oddly enough.

He lets Nursey lead him up the stairs to the ground floor, and then up the stairs to the second floor, and it occurs to Dex how many flights of stairs there are in the Haus, because there's another flight up to the attic and that makes... three, which is a small number but it's a lot of flights of stairs in one frat house, and then they're in Nursey's room and Nursey is opening the bag he'd been carrying and pulling out a takeout box that, when opened, reveals a cinnamon roll. As promised.

He presents the box to Dex ceremoniously and says, "Your reward."

Nursey's wall clock says it's 11:01, and the view out Nursey's window says it's raining, but there's still enough light filtering through the clouds and into the room that it doesn't feel that dark. Better than the basement, for sure. And Nursey takes off his jacket and hangs it on his desk chair to dry and sits on the floor, and Dex sits down with him, and Nursey says, "Yeah, you already look better. That lighting you chose does  _ not _ do your complexion any favors."

And Dex rolls his eyes but doesn't say anything (his mouth is full), and Nursey smiles widely. And he does feel better, actually. Being here with Nursey is better than being alone with his thoughts.

But he doesn't say that, because it would destroy the light tone Nursey is clearly going for. So instead he says, "Maybe I should get a sun lamp."

"Yeah, the basement doesn't have enough plants in it yet."

"That sounded suspiciously like a chirp."

Nursey shrugs. "I call it like I see it."

They sit in silence for a few minutes as Dex finishes his cinnamon roll, and then he says, "Thanks. It was probably a good idea for me to get out of there."

And Nursey shrugs again, and he says, "Glad I could help," but it sounds brittle. Just a bit. 

And Dex has always been someone who pokes into things, so he says, "What's up?"

A sigh, minute, and then a quizzical facial expression that Nursey pastes on half a second too late.

"Nursey, usually when I say you were right about something you gloat for at least twenty seconds."

Nursey drops the quizzical face in favor of something carefully blank, something like how he looked when he opened the basement door earlier, and says, "Oh. It's just been a week. You've got other things to think about, don't worry about it."

"I don't have anything else to think about besides how I'm not going to be able to get any of my work done today," Dex points out. "And you said thinking about that for the whole day was a bad idea. So you might as well tell me if something's bothering you."

Also, Nursey is good at not telling people things. He'll notice if other people are struggling and say something, but he is absolutely terrible at doing the same for himself. So Dex will prod him into being honest. And besides, he actually wants to help Nursey, or wants him to look happier but there's no difference, really, and if it'll keep his brain away from mulling over all the work he isn't doing today, then so much the better.

Nursey sighs again, and for a second Dex thinks he's going to have to up his game, but then Nursey says, "It's really not much. My Caribbean Lit class is just kicking my ass right now, and I haven't had time to do stuff for other classes, so. I really need to catch up on everything else. Because being behind is not great. So I'm gonna have a  _ super _ fun weekend."

"Oh." Dex can't remember Nursey ever mentioning being behind on work before, at least not this semester. He's always been the type of person to do assignments because he actually finds them interesting. Or fun. Or something. He's a nerd like that. Dex knows the idea of needing extra time on an assignment is not foreign to Nursey, but that knowledge is based on a series of educated guesses made last semester. He doesn't want Nursey to look like that again. "Well, if you need any help with anything to, like, make it through with your sanity, you know where to find me."

They sit in silence for a little bit, and Dex is content to just look out the window at the rain— it's gentle enough that he probably wouldn't bother with an umbrella, but noticeable enough that he would put a jacket on, he decides. Not that it matters much, since he's not going anywhere.

And then Nursey says, "Would you mind checking in with me at, like, eleven? Just to tell me to go the fuck to sleep."

"Sure," Dex says, and the satisfaction of being someone Nursey knows he can rely on feels like it suffuses the entire room. He knows he would have done it without being asked, from the moment Nursey said he had a lot to do this weekend, but Nursey willingly asking for Dex's support means... a lot. "I can do that."

And Dex probably isn't going to get any of his own work done today, not when he feels like logical, sustained thought beyond basic addition is out of reach for him right now, but if he can help Nursey out, then today won't be a waste.

He also might be considering what to bake to make Nursey's awful weekend a little less awful. But he's still not turning into Bitty, because he's not baking to procrastinate on his own shit. He'll make those muffins for Nursey again, since they're easy to snack on, and something else for the rest of the team so they don't bitch about Dex playing favorites.

Today might actually turn out to be a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nursey: likes cinnamon a reasonable amount
> 
> dex: would 100% break into the lax house if they had freshly baked cinnamon rolls and the haus did not (though he likes to deny it. bitty teaching dex to bake really prevents a lot of future sticky legal situations)
> 
> i did finish writing this so daily updates until we finish!! (which. won't be very many days from now LOL)
> 
> thanks for reading!!  
> -love, birl


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somehow this turned into a thanksgiving fic??? weird because it's may??????????? (i mean. not *really* a thanksgiving fic. but it is a central plot point for some reason)

Hausgiving is next week.

Hausgiving is next week, and Dex knows he is no Bitty, and he'd been planning to ask a few other people on the team to help but now it's next week and he hasn't even started thinking about a menu. They don't even have a reservation for a turkey, fuck, what if they can't get a turkey? Can they have Hausgiving with no turkey?

He'd texted Bitty that morning, full of panic, and Bitty had replied with instructions on where to find the folder of recipes Bitty had written out for future Hausgivings while he was supposed to be working on his thesis. And thank fuck for that. But now Dex is in the kitchen, staring at the recipes, and realizing exactly how much there is to do and how acutely aware he is that he has never made a multi-course meal before for anyone, much less nine people (because most of the team is going home for break, but Chowder and Nursey are staying, and Whiskey's staying, and so are Louis, Hops, and Bully, and Ford, and Farmer's coming over too because the volleyball team doesn't have Thanksgiving traditions, and counting Dex that makes nine). 

He is  _ so _ fucked. He's not going to be able to get everything done, and Bitty did Hausgiving every year for four years and Dex had just been thinking he'd been doing okay, captaining-wise, but then this happened. And it's not like 'the captain must prepare a perfect Hausgiving dinner' is in the bylaws, or anything, but it still needs to happen. Somehow.

And of course that means now is the perfect time for Nursey and his sixth sense for Dex's impending meltdowns to appear in the kitchen. A few years ago, his arrival would have just put Dex even more on edge, but now he finds himself hopeful. Nursey's chill front can be useful sometimes and right now Dex would really like someone to look him in the eye and tell him everything is fine.

"Yo," Nursey says from the doorway. He leans on it like there's nowhere else in the world he'd rather be, messenger bag slung over one shoulder, green hat making his eyes look even more green, face genuinely relaxed.

"I'm freaking out," Dex announces.

Nursey blinks, but then he immediately says, "Oh. Because of Hausgiving?"

_ What the fuck? _

"How did you know?"

He waves his phone at Dex like it contains the secrets of the universe. "Bitty texted me. But I was writing a paper in the library so I texted Chowder and he's on the phone right now with some grocery store he found that has turkeys in stock, it's not walking distance so I'll drive over to pick it up next week. Not that I think any of us would want to walk around carrying a huge-ass turkey. Also, I put the waffles in charge of any and all Stop 'n Shop trips. Bitty knows how long all of those recipes take so he can help you figure out how to time everything. And you know any of us will help you with whatever you need in the kitchen. Even if you don't trust me with knives for some ungodly reason."

Dex's jaw is probably on the floor right now, but then Nursey slips his phone back into his pocket and turns to go up the stairs and Dex feels the need to stop him in his tracks and get him to stay.

"Nursey," he says, and Nursey turns around before his name is half out of Dex's mouth. "You're my fucking hero."

Nursey grins and it's like the sun coming out. "Did I save Hausgiving?"

Dex can't even figure out how to respond to that. Or how to express what he wants to say. Nursey, in the middle of writing a paper, somehow coordinating a mass team effort to make Hausgiving happen and then just saying it like it's nothing. Like Hausgiving and its lack of planning wasn't going to haunt Dex's every waking moment. Like he hadn't already been gearing up for a terrible Hausgiving that would be all his fault, because  _ fuck, _ if Bitty hadn't texted Nursey then that's probably exactly what would have happened, and if Nursey hadn't decided to do something about it then that's probably exactly what would have happened, and even now there's still so much to do and at least Dex will probably have everything he needs to make it work but now if he doesn't it'll  _ really _ suck and that would be a shitty thing to do after Nursey already went to the trouble of coordinating the rest of the team and— 

"Dex," Nursey says, and Dex registers that somehow while he was internally freaking out Nursey came fully into the kitchen and is now right in front of him. His messenger bag is on the kitchen table. He's not smiling anymore, but he doesn't look mad, either. Just serious. "How about you do not stand in the kitchen right now? I don't think the aura of, you know, _ cooking  _ is helpful right now."

They're halfway down the stairs to the basement before Dex even realizes that they've left the kitchen. Nursey's got a hand on his arm, not pulling him along or even guiding him really, just... there.

Like he always is.

And that's probably what prompts Dex to ask, "How have you been... keeping it together this whole semester? I've had, like, six disasters. All of which you have witnessed. And you haven't."

Nursey opens the door to Dex's room before he says, "Well. I almost drove myself off the deep end last semester. Which you also witnessed. So I guess you could just say I got it over with earlier. Also, I'm not the one trying to live up to some perfect idealized image of Bitty's captaincy that you definitely made up. I love the guy but he's human. Do you not remember cutting the wires to Betsy so he couldn't bake?"

"All too well," Dex says, and he lets Nursey usher him into his room, and he sits down on his bed and watches himself twist his hands into the covers, and Nursey sits down next to him. (Blanket permission. It wasn't funny the first time, and it's not funny now, but the memory of Nursey laughing his ass off is a good one.) "Poor Betsy. I hope she doesn't hate me."

"You've baked enough that you know she doesn't. But stop telling yourself you need to be like Bitty." Nursey's voice has been calm and firm, but now it takes on a sharper note. Dex can feel his gaze on the side of his face. "I'm serious. Nobody wants that. And also? You're allowed to not be the perfect captain. I don't think I even know what a perfect captain would be like. It makes zero sense to strive for an ideal when you don't know what that ideal is."

And he's right. It doesn't. But turning off the perfectionism in Dex's brain is easier said than done, which is why he says, "I'll try." Which is something he's said before. He doesn't always succeed. But he'll give it a go. Again. Hopefully repetition is key.

"Good." And Dex hears Nursey's phone buzz, and Nursey looks at it and says, "The turkey reservation is secured. Chowder also says he's helped cook a turkey before so if you give him Bitty's recipe he can do it. And Bully says he's down to make whatever, and I quote, 'as long as it's not a pie because Dex's are better and we all know that'. Uh, and Ford has volunteered Whiskey as a sous chef, but he's in that group chat too and he's not protesting, so. You got this."

And just like that, Dex is astonished again. Nursey really did just... rope the entire team into helping with Hausgiving. Because Bitty said... well, Dex doesn't actually know what Bitty said, but he's guessing it was along the lines of 'did you know Dex is freaking the fuck out about Hausgiving.'

"Thank you," he says, and he's probably imagining the hint of hoarseness he hears in his voice but it feels like it should be there. Because Nursey did all of this for him at the drop of a hat, and Dex honestly might cry but if he does, it's no big deal. "Um. Really. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't just kind of... swooped in and solved everything."

"That's me," Nursey agrees. "Deus ex machina." And he wraps an arm around Dex's shoulders, and it feels like the simplest thing in the word for Dex to half-rotate and hug him, and when he does, Nursey hugs him back. His sweater is soft, like Dex knew it would be, and it honestly takes a lot of self-control for him to not bury his face in Nursey's shoulder.

And then he does it anyway. But Nursey hugs him tighter, so he probably doesn't mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one chapter left!!!! ooOoOooOoOOOo what's gonna happen????????????????
> 
> thanks for reading!  
> -love, birl


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +1.

The kitchen is finally  _ fucking  _ clean.

Okay, Dex might not have much of a right to feel victorious. He hadn't been allowed to help. Which was ridiculous, because Chowder had made the turkey and Whiskey had chopped ridiculous amounts of vegetables and Bully had made the stuffing and  _ they _ all helped clean. And Farmer did, too, and she was a guest. But Ford had found Shitty's old bullhorn somewhere and used it to instruct Louis to march Dex into the living room while the rest of the team cleaned up. And he had complied with a speed that makes Dex think it was 100% planned.

And then they'd had to let all the pots and pans air dry, so the counters had been covered with all sorts of things overnight, and then there had been a turkey-sandwich-making extravaganza today for lunch, which actually... didn't really make much of a mess. So Dex didn't have to do much cleaning then either.

Still. It's nice that the kitchen is clean. Maybe he can even enjoy its cleanliness for a few hours before baking something.

"Fuck," Dex mutters at that.

"What?" Nursey asks. He's sitting at the kitchen table— okay, maybe  _ lounging _ is a better word. He's wearing another sweater today. Charcoal gray. Fancy sweaters are basically Nursey's uniform in the fall and the winter, which Dex can respect. He does the same thing, if you take 'fancy' and replace it with 'plaid' and then you take 'sweater' and replace it with 'flannel'. Nursey's sweaters are much nicer.

"How long do you think I'll last before I start baking?" Dex asks him.

"Like, six hours, tops."

"Yeah." Nursey looks like he might start laughing, but Dex barrels on. "Maybe it's a curse. Gay captains of the Samwell Men's Hockey team must bake compulsively for their entire senior year."

And then Nursey really does start laughing, and something warms in Dex's chest. Which has been happening a lot with Nursey lately. But he hasn't been thinking about it, because, well. He's been busy.

But now the kitchen is clean, and Dex is going to try and hold out against the baking impulses for a while, and he  _ could _ leave but he doesn't want to. He wants to stay here with Nursey and sit at the kitchen table together and enjoy the rest of the day, enjoy the Haus being a little quieter with most of the team at home instead of tromping in and out, enjoy being with Nursey.

He sits down at the kitchen table, across from Nursey, and he's aware of the fact that the table is not that big— they have a big folding table that they bring out for Hausgiving and beer pong, but this one's just a round table big enough for four— and he says, "Got any plans for today?"

One side of Nursey's mouth quirks up and Dex is absolutely positive he's going to say something designed to be frustrating. "What will you do if I say 'chilling'?"

_ Called it. _ "Probably nothing, but I'll be silently glad I was right."

And then Nursey grins and Dex can't help but smile back. "Hm. I'm getting predictable."

Dex shrugs. "Well, I've been paying attention."

"I know." 

Dex raises his eyebrows, and Nursey says, "I've been paying attention too." He smiles, and then he adds, "But seriously, I have no plans for today. And I'm going to gracefully ignore that it's already past noon and for all you know I could have had morning plans. Although I'm tentatively considering reading news coverage of all the Black Friday carnage. Oh, maybe we should do a team movie night tonight. Something really, really awful."

He starts listing possible candidates for a very bad movie for the team to watch, but Dex finds himself focusing on other things. Little things. Like the way Nursey talks with his hands when he gets excited— like the fact that  _ Nursey _ and  _ excitement _ fit in the same sentence so much better than Dex thought they did a few years ago— and that must be an older sweater because it pulls just a bit over his shoulders in a way Dex knows Nursey usually can't stand, and the sunlight hitting the side of his face is making his eyelashes cast shadows over his cheekbones, and Dex usually isn't one to notice such things but it's beautiful somehow, and his words get faster and faster but they never trip over themselves and that's when the realization hits Dex that he could listen to Nursey talk about bad movies for the rest of his life.

Not just that he could do it. That he  _ wants _ to listen to Nursey talk about anything he wants to talk about for the rest of his life.

It hits with all the force of a sack of bricks, but a sack of bricks that he didn't know he wanted to hit him. Which makes no sense, but it's the best Dex can do at the moment, because he has other things to think about.

Or more accurately, now that he's thought it, he can't  _ stop _ thinking about it. 

Dex wants to be around Nursey for the rest of his life, and he knows this with an embarrassing level of certainty considering that a) they've technically known each other since their taddy tour, but that isn't even a full four years ago yet, and b) he is acutely aware that he doesn't just want to be around Nursey. He wants them to keep going like this forever. Gravitating towards each other constantly and spending their time together and being each other's  _ person. _ Like, Dex also wants Chowder to be in his life forever, but that's different. Aside from a couple of weeks their frog year when he had a crush possibly the size of Jupiter, Dex has never found himself staring at Chowder paying exactly zero attention to what he's saying because he's focusing on how he'd really like to just lean over the table that is small but not small enough and respectfully wait for him to finish his sentence before pulling him in and kissing him within an inch of his life and— wait.

_ What.  _ The  _ fuck. _

Okay. Dex's brain has definitely taken this in a  _ direction. _

And he's in the middle of resolving to think more about this later and trying to tune back into what Nursey is saying when Nursey says his name. And then he says, "Dude, you're zoned out as fuck, what's up?"

"I just realized I'm in love with you," Dex blurts out, and Nursey freezes.

Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit  _ shit. _

Okay. It's time to leave the kitchen now.

He gets up and is momentarily torn between leaving the Haus entirely or going to the basement and locking the door behind him— which has the benefit of ensuring that he won't run into anyone, so basement it is. He's got some protein bars down there. Thank God he stocked up. He'll be fine for at least twenty hours, maybe more depending on how many protein bars there are. Would Bitty be appalled? Yes. But that's none of Dex's concern right now. And besides, he thinks Bitty might sympathize enough to forgive Dex living on his basement supply of protein bars for as long as is physically possible.

But he's just reached the stairs when he hears footsteps and Nursey says, " _ Dex." _

"What," Dex says as he starts going down the stairs.

"Dex. Wait."

And Dex stops, his heart hammering in his chest like it might break out if he's not careful. And he waits.

When Nursey speaks, the words pour out all in a rush, but still in order, still not pushing past each other to try and be first. "I've been in love with you for months and I'm really pissed you just walked out before I could say that, you fucking dumbass."

That gets Dex to turn around and see Nursey, standing at the top of the stairs, eyes wide, and for some reason, the first words out of his mouth are, "You fucking bluescreened, what was I supposed to think?"

Nursey rolls his eyes, but he's also smiling like he doesn't know how to stop, and he takes a couple of steps down the stairs towards where Dex is. "I had to process. I don't think you understand, it's been  _ months.  _ And you just kind of put all your cards on the table and left immediately and I had to sit there and confirm that you really did say what I thought you said and I wasn't just spontaneously hallucinating."

Dex blinks.

And then he blinks again, because if Nursey isn't spontaneously hallucinating, then Dex probably isn't either. "So that means it's a good thing I decided to go to the basement instead of leaving the Haus?"

"You were going to just straight up leave the Haus because you said you were in love with me and I didn't say anything for point-two seconds?" When Dex shrugs, Nursey laughs, bright and loud and a little shocked, and says, "You're so overdramatic."

"Only for you," Dex says.

"I'm not sure that's true."

Dex takes a couple steps up the stairs, and then they're face to face, or as close to face to face as they can be with Dex still one step below Nursey. "It's true enough."

The corners of Nursey's eyes crinkle up the tiniest bit when he smiles, and Dex can suddenly picture Nursey as he will look in thirty years, still wearing those sweaters, still insultingly attractive, crow's feet at the corners of his eyes and laugh lines on his face, and Dex suddenly, desperately wants to be there to see him in person too, and then Nursey says, "I seriously doubt it."

Dex has completely forgotten what they're talking about, but he knows he wants to win whatever argument they're having, so he just says, "Oh, yeah? Well. Counterargument," and it's the easiest thing in the world to wind an arm around Nursey's waist and pull him in, and for a second he thinks he's going to have to stand on his tiptoes (which would be fucking embarrassing, especially since they're literally the same height), but Nursey leans down and  _ kisses _ him.

And Dex realizes he actually does not give one single shit if he has to stand on his tiptoes or not to kiss Nursey, because even if he does, it is so  _ fucking _ worth it.

Because Nursey's lips are soft and he kisses like he means it and Dex is weaker in the knees than he'd like to admit and he just wants to pull Nursey as close as he possibly can, and then a little closer for good measure, and never let go again. He does  _ not _ let himself pull at Nursey's sweater— it's too nice for that— but he finds the belt loop on Nursey's jeans, hooks his finger in it, and is pretty sure he's not imagining the way Nursey presses closer to him when he does, and he can feel the heat of Nursey's hands on the back of his neck and between his shoulder blades and  _ fuck, _ Dex is glad he said something. He could be here forever.

He could do a lot of things forever, if he's doing them with Nursey.

But forever's a long way away. They can start with now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's a wrap!!! i'm almost done w my semester and i'm SO hyped because it means i'll finally have time to keep writing pie and prejudice!! in an ideal world the first chapter of *that* will be up sometime late next week, and if you've been waiting for that and haven't read olympic friend-making yet u should do so bc it's a lil prologue i posted to help w the wait :)
> 
> and shoutout to 'a sack of bricks that he didn't know he wanted to hit him' which is,, possibly the worst simile i've ever come up with in my life?
> 
> also dex had a massive crush on chowder (also jack but who didn't) their frog year and no you cannot change my mind.
> 
> thanks for reading!  
> -love, birl <3

**Author's Note:**

> been a while since i've posted something so HERE YA GO
> 
> i'll probably post a chapter every few days-- i'm only 2/3 done (and i'm headed for an absolutely ludicrously busy weekend) which is why i'm not posting daily
> 
> -love, birl


End file.
